The invention pertains to a stator for an electric machine. In particular, the invention pertains to the arrangement of a ring-shaped carrier element which holds the electrical connecting conductors used to wire the stator together and thus forms part of the arrangement for wiring the individual stator coils.
Known stators for electric machines have a stator yoke with a certain number of stator teeth, which carry the electrical winding in the form of, for example, individual stator coils formed out of insulated wire. The two ends of each coil are assigned to individual phases, and the coils are wired together in a predetermined manner by means of a wiring arrangement, which includes common connecting conductors. In the case of a 3-phase machine, the stator has three phases and thus at least three connecting conductors, which are supplied with current at a phase offset of 120° from each other. The connecting conductors are connected to a switch box, so that the electric machine can be connected to a power source. The connecting conductors can, for example, be positioned in a receiving space formed as an integral part of the winding bodies and thus held in place on the stator. A winding body suitable for this purpose is described in, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,541,888. In this variant, the individual prefabricated coils are first mounted on the stator yoke, and then the connecting conductors are laid in the receiving space, which extends segment by segment through the set of winding bodies, and connected to the ends of the coils.
There is also the alternative possibility, however, of premounting the connecting conductors in a carrier element separate from the winding bodies and of mounting this carrier element as a prefabricated unit on the stator. For this purpose, U.S. Pat. No. 6,600,244 discloses a stator designed in such a way that the carrier element which holds the electrical connecting conductors is mounted axially next to the stator coils. The carrier element can have axially projecting fastening claws, which engage in openings in the winding bodies. The openings are introduced into an area of the end surface of the winding bodies which projects axially over the coil winding.
It is felt to be a disadvantage of the arrangement described above that the winding bodies must be extended axially from the stator to create an area in which the openings can be formed. As a result, the electric machine as a whole becomes unnecessarily large in the axial direction.
A stator of the type indicated above is described in DE 198 50 818 A1, in which the connecting conductors are located in a carrier element mounted radially on the winding bodies of the stator coils. The document gives no indication, however, of how the carrier element is held in position there.